The Great Unknown
by papillon-chaotique
Summary: Post-Both Sides Now: He never assumed that parenting would be easy, but he also never would have guessed it could be this mind-numbing and exasperating—this capable of making you question your every ability to succeed—in such a short period of time.


SPOILERS: Up to 5x24 "Both Sides Now"

NOTES: I don't even know. I've had the concept in my brain for months, and I've been poking at this for weeks. It's un-beta'd, so all mistakes are a result of my own tired mind. I'm not sure how I feel about this one - writing for the new, sweeter and sappier version of CC that exists in canon now (even though I adore them that way) is proving more difficult to write for than when we barely knew their relationship at all. Anyway, I like to imagine that they'd be at least somewhat like this were such situations ever to play out on our TV screens. I hope you'll enjoy it.

**____________________________**

At barely six 'o clock in the evening, the early October sun has already given way to dusk, with the quiet stillness of a darkened autumn night following hurriedly on its tail. The sky has transformed into a masterpiece of reds, violets, yellows and oranges that mingle magnificently above treetops covered in equally brilliant fall foliage. Inside a typical house in the suburbs, a little girl plays innocently with her toys as her mother races frantically from room to room in an attempt to get everything settled before taking her leave for the night.

"Thank you so much for doing this," Cuddy repeats for the third time, smiling anxiously as she lifts Rachel from her playpen, squeezing her tightly and kissing her rosy cheeks before finally releasing the baby into Cameron's waiting arms. "When my sitter got sick, I didn't know how I would make this work. I shouldn't be too late, but I really can't be sure."

Cameron straddles the nine-month-old expertly over her hipbone and offers a finger for the child to hold. "Seriously, Lisa, don't worry about it. As long as you spend this dinner sweet-talking the board into hiring more nurses for me, you can stay out as long as it takes. Besides," she adds, glancing across the nursery to where Chase watches tentatively from the doorway, "we need the practice."

He grins proudly in response, finally taking a few quick steps into the room and making his way toward Cameron's side. Daring to reach out a hand, he playfully pinches Rachel's delectably chunky thigh and breathes a quiet sigh of relief when she simply coos instead of cries. He's been around babies plenty of times before and he's always been wonderful with them, but this is the first time he's ever been responsible for one outside the protection of hospital walls. This isn't a patient. This is the real thing. And as he wraps an arm around Cameron's waist, hand resting lovingly over a stomach that has yet to expand, he recognizes that this is a taste of what's to come.

Rachel giggles in Cameron's arms and Chase's heart flutters quickly as he imagines what their own child will sound like when Cameron tickles her chest in exactly that same way. He takes one final second to lose himself in visions of a not-so-distant future, then turns to Cuddy and nods with absolute confidence.

"We'll be fine. It'll be great."

**-----**

"This is impossible!"

"Babe," Chase replies in amusement, "it's not impossible. Maybe she just doesn't want it?"

Cameron spins toward him from where she sits in front of the high chair, spoonful of applesauce dangling in the air inches from Rachel's mouth. "Look at her!" She shouts, motioning back to where Rachel sits screaming, trails of tears streaming down her flustered red cheeks. "We've been trying for nearly an hour! She's got to be starving, Chase! Why won't she eat anything?"

Taking a step forward, Chase picks up a few tiny bites of chicken nugget from the high chair tray, pushing aside the assortment of bread crumbs and vegetables that make up the mushy mixture of baby-sized table food. Crouching down to her level, he slowly reaches out his hand and drops the chicken bits into Rachel's wailing mouth. Instantly, the crying ceases and Chase smiles triumphantly at his awestruck wife.

"I'm impressed," she tells him honestly, leaning in to place a kiss upon his cheek. But before she can make contact, Rachel begins to whimper again. Turning cautiously, the couple watches helplessly as the baby spits out the partially chewed bites of nugget and immediately begins to shriek even louder than before.

"You're right," Chase concedes, standing again and throwing his hands up in defeat. "This is impossible!"

At a loss for answers, Cameron finally pulls the tray away from the high chair and unfastens the safety belt, lifting Rachel into her arms. Although the change in position does do well at softening the volume of her cries, the baby's tantrum continues nonetheless. For Chase and Cameron, figuring out how to properly console her at this point suddenly feels like a goal for the night that may just be unattainable.

Swaying Rachel gently in her arms, Cameron runs a hand repeatedly over her little head and softly shushes into her ear. Chase stands less than five feet away, leaning backward against the refrigerator and watching powerlessly as their night of parenthood training swiftly crumbles around them. He never assumed that parenting would be easy, but he also never would have guessed it could be this mind-numbing and exasperating—this capable of making you question your every ability to succeed—in such a short period of time.

Locking eyes with Cameron, Chase can easily see her own faith in their abilities beginning to crack as she wonders, too, whether or not they can actually handle what awaits them in nearly seven months time. But suddenly her expression morphs into one of hope, and Chase notices a shift in her demeanor as she begins to step toward him.

"Wait here, I have an idea." Cameron hands the baby off to Chase, leaving him awkwardly tense in the kitchen as Rachel continues screeching in his ear. He watches as Cameron dashes out of the room, only to reappear less than a minute later with a bottle of baby soap in her hand.

"You want to give her a bath?" Chase asks incredulously, nervously gripping Rachel to his chest and attempting to calm her despite his own uncertainties. "She's having a meltdown, Allison! You toss her into a tub of water, that's just going to upset her more!"

Cameron smiles, suddenly self-assured and composed amidst the chaos. "It's a calming, lavender nighttime formula," she tells him, handing the bottle over as she reaches out to retrieve Rachel and start back toward the bathroom. "Come on. It'll work, I promise."

**-----**

Fifteen minutes can make a world of difference, Chase decides silently as he holds out a fluffy yellow towel, smiling as Cameron hoists little Rachel out of the water and places her happily into Chase's waiting arms. Mirroring her husband's happy expression, Cameron reaches behind the baby to pull the hoodie up onto her head, laughing softly at the face of a duckling staring back.

"Alright little ducky, let's get you dressed." But when she moves to take the baby from Chase, he is suddenly more than a little unwillingly to share. Cocking an eyebrow and adding on a knowing smirk for good measure, Cameron waits several seconds before finally forcing Chase to speak up.

"Say it."

Chase sighs heavily, knowing he's been beat, instinctively shifting Rachel closer to his chest to protect her from any chill. "You were right. Okay? Happy now? You said the bath would work, and it did. I was wrong to give up so quickly. You win."

"Thank you," she responds delightedly, rubbing the happy duck face swiftly over Rachel's soft skull to remove the water from her baby-fine hair. "That wasn't so hard, right?" Rising up on her toes, Cameron leans in to kiss Chase quickly on the mouth before running a finger over Rachel's tiny nose and maneuvering around them, leading the way to the nursery. "C'mon, let's get her dried off and see if she'll take her bottle."

"Hey babe," Chase calls after her, following obediently down the hall with Rachel securely in his grasp. "We should get some of these little animal towel thingies for the baby."

"'Animal towel thingies'?" He hears her laughingly respond from inside Rachel's room, stepping through the doorway to find Cameron digging into the infant dresser for baby-sized pajamas.

"She'd look pretty cute in one of these, I'd bet." Chase plays with the cloth beak on top of Rachel's head for a quick second, momentarily lost in the gaze of the innocent, happy child staring back at him, then moves to lie her atop the changing table where Cameron has set aside a dry diaper and wipes. "We could get her lots of different ones. I'm sure they have sheep and ladybugs and other cute girly things." He looks up as Cameron arrives at his side with pink footy pajamas, smiling softly to herself as she listens to him talk. "Maybe they even make these with koalas."

"Or wombats." Cameron fires back without missing a beat, unwrapping Rachel from her yellow duck cocoon and forcing herself not to laugh as Chase stares back in horror.

"Don't you _dare_," he responds adamantly, changing positions to stand behind her and wrap an arm around her waist again, hand finding it's favorite spot protectively across her stomach. "I did not put up with that nickname all those years just so everyone could torture my daughter with it, too."

Cameron throws him an amused look over her shoulder, quickly returning to her task of dressing Rachel. "You and this 'daughter' fixation of yours. Honestly, what are you going to do if the sonogram reveals we're having a boy?"

He shrugs his shoulders carelessly and nuzzles her neck, gripping just a little bit tighter around her waist. "Love him. Start planning for the days when I can teach him to play football and rugby with me. And then," he mumbles cautiously near Cameron's ear, "convince you to try again immediately until we get our little girl."

"You," Cameron chuckles, shoving an elbow lightly into Chase's abdomen and gently pushing him away, "are incorrigible. You just want a little girl so you can spoil her and she'll like you better than me."

Chase moves to lean against the head of the changing table and attempts to look insulted before crumbling under his wife's all-knowing stare. "Okay, maybe, but just because she'll be daddy's little girl doesn't mean she won't adore her mum, too."

Fastening the last of the snaps on Rachel's jammies, Cameron quietly lifts her from the table and sets her comfortably upon her hip, gazing at Chase contentedly all the while.

"What?" Chase questions softly, neither of them taking one single step toward exiting the room.

"I just—I love listening to you talk about it. Hearing you daydream about her. Or _him_," she's sure to tack on with a small smile. "Hearing you talk about us as 'mommy' and 'daddy' – it just makes me feel better to know how certain you are that we can do this."

"Well," he drawls out slowly, "I admit that I wasn't so sure before we got Rachel here all calmed down. She was making me wonder if maybe we're not cut out for this sort of thing everyday for God-only-knows how long."

Cameron offers him a sad smile, understanding the uncertainties and fears that burrow deep within both of their souls at times, creating a black hole of nearly-paralyzing self-doubt whenever reality throws them stones instead of rose petals and reminds them with instant panic that they will soon be solely responsible for the happiness and health of their own innocent little being.

"We're a team," she tells him, shifting Rachel on her hip as the baby begins to quietly fuss. "As long as we stick together, we can figure it out."

Chase nods silently, lips pressed together but smiling even so.

"Let's go. See if we can't get some formula into her before she starts crying again."

-----

Almost as quickly as the calm and quiet settled around them after Rachel's soothing bath, the storm rolls in once more. Twenty minutes of taking turns with the baby and her bottle have left Chase and Cameron frazzled yet again in the face of an extremely unhappy child. Rachel wails in Cameron's arms, inconsolable despite their best efforts, as Chase paces the living room floor and runs his hands through his hair repeatedly.

"I don't get it," Cameron shouts over the infant's screams. "I was sure she'd take the whole bottle after barely touching dinner." She pauses to pull the bottle away from Rachel's wide-open mouth and check if any has actually been consumed. The baby continues flailing in Cameron's arms, entire face covered in spilled formula from the abandoned nipple and waiting to be cleaned yet again. "But she's barely had an ounce! One ounce, Chase!"

"Maybe—Maybe she's about to hit a growth spurt? Sometimes they don't eat much right before that happens, remember?" Chase stops pacing long enough to stand beside where Cameron sits at the edge of the sofa, taking the full bottle from her and setting it aside as she contemplates his theory.

After a brief moment, Cameron shakes her head in frustration and uses the burp rag to wipe the mixture of tears milk from Rachel's face, bouncing her helplessly in her lap. "She would have at least eaten _something_, though, even if that were true. She should have taken the bottle since she skipped solid food, or eaten the solids but refused the bottle. It doesn't make sense!"

"Then what?" Chase barks loudly, both of them losing their patience amidst the constant, deafening cries from Rachel. "Do you think she's cutting another tooth?"

"She doesn't – hold on." Cameron reaches a finger into the baby's mouth, feeling around her teeth and gums for signs of any new protrusions. Finding none, she collapses into the back of the couch and sighs. "I don't feel anything."

"That doesn't mean it's not happening, though!" Chase insists. "We should give her some Tylenol and see if that helps."

Glaring at him, Cameron stands and walks across the living room to buckle Rachel into her bouncy seat, turning on the vibration effect and softly bouncing the contraption with her foot. "Chase, we're not drugging her just because we don't know how to keep her quiet! Is that what you plan to do with our kids? Just give up and dose them every time you can't figure them out?"

"If I think they're in pain, yes! It doesn't make you a bad parent to give her a little medicine just in case!"

"She's not our child! Cuddy would have mentioned it if the baby was teething. We can't just pour medicine into her on a hunch!" She yells, bending down to try holding a pacifier in Rachel's mouth in a last-ditch effort to quiet the screams.

Chase rubs his hands over his face in exhausted frustration and Cameron knows he's debating whether or not to actually speak his mind. When he does talk again, his tones remain angry and overpowering, and Cameron knows his softer side lost this round.

"We're doctors, Allison! Giving medicine by trial and error is what we do every day! And Jesus Christ, it's just Children's Tylenol! Nothing bad is going to happen to her if she takes it without any real pain!" Pacing yet again, Chase gesticulates wildly with his hands as he moves about the room, and Cameron gives up on her fruitless efforts with the binky. "What happened to 'We're a team'? You can't just shut me down because you're scared to test a harmless theory! Either she's teething and we can help her, or she's not and it turns out we're just total failures at parenting! We can't even get this one to eat anything and she hasn't stopped screaming for more than twenty minutes since we got here, but don't worry! I'm sure we'll be bloody-damn brilliant with our own kid, won't we?"

Cameron just stares, arms crossed defensively and protectively over her belly, and Chase doesn't notice as her lip begins to quiver and tears well-up in her tired eyes. He's too far across the room and much too unfocused to notice how his words have stung her.

"Maybe you should leave for a while," she whispers, just loud enough for him to hear over Rachel's cries.

"What?" Chase freezes in place and locks eyes with Cameron from several feet away, finally noticing the emotional reaction he's caused. "Oh, babe. I'm sorry," he starts, taking a few quick steps in her direction and feeling the guilt rise in his chest. "I'm sorry, Ally, I didn't mean that. I'm just – I'm just so frustrated and I don't – I don't know how to help her."

Nodding silently with lips pressed together and foot continuously bouncing Rachel despite her screams, Cameron stares into Chase's eyes just as a tear pours over the edge of her own. "I know," she answers, wiping away the proof of her inner turmoil. Kneeling down to release the baby from the seat, she lifts Rachel into her arms once more. With the little one still howling into her ear, Cameron meets Chase's eyes again. "But us screaming at each other isn't helping the situation, either. She's feeding off of our negativity. Either we calm down, or she's never going to. So maybe—maybe you should just go get some air or something, and I'll try to get her to sleep."

Chase wants to protest; to tell her that they can't possibly be a team if he's not allowed to stay and help, but the look on Cameron's face makes it more than clear to him that this is not so much a suggestion as it is a command. Feeling overwhelmed and guilt-ridden for having upset her enough already, Chase can only glance to the floor and nod slightly before turning and walking out Cuddy's front door.

**-----**

By the time Chase re-enters the house, it's been over half an hour and he's surprised (albeit relieved) to hear nothing but silence from within. As he turns from the entryway to the living room, he notices that Cameron isn't there and realizes he can't call out to her for fear of waking a hopefully sleeping baby from her much-needed slumber.

Stepping further into the house, however, Chase recognizes a soft humming sound coming from the direction of Rachel's nursery. The door is halfway closed and the room is blanketed in darkness, but each step closer confirms what he first suspected: Cameron is singing. Her choice of lullaby causes Chase to laugh silently to himself as he leans against the doorframe and watches unnoticed whilst Cameron rocks the baby gently, bottle happily suckled between her tiny lips, and continues to sing sweetly and slightly off-key.

"_There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway; a song that they sing when they take to the sea; a song that they sing of their home in the sky, and maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep. But singing works just fine for me_…"

Rachel squirms adorably as Cameron attempts to hold the note, and Chase can't help but break the peace with a quiet laugh. Cameron's head shoots up, but she relaxes immediately at the realization that the nursery intruder is her adoring husband and not an angry psycho from the streets. Although given their argument earlier, Cameron can't help but quickly wonder if maybe Chase is a little of both right now. But when he offers her a smile that never ceases to make her heart flutter just a little, she knows they'll be able to find their way back as always.

"What's so funny?" She asks him softly, careful not to disturb Rachel as the baby works feverishly on her bottle.

"James Taylor? There are hundreds of lullabies in the world, and you're singing her James Taylor songs?"

Cameron ducks her head, somehow shy with him even after all their years together. "We've been singing since you left. I ran out of traditional lullabies."

"It's good," Chase murmurs in the dark, crossing into the room and kneeling beside the rocking chair to admire Rachel in this quiet, sleepy state. "I think it's sweet. How did you get her to eat? How did you even get her to stop crying?"

Biting her lower lip, Cameron looks at Chase with wide eyes that ask forgiveness before she can even speak. "You were right," she whispers, voice noticeably shaky from the night's emotional ride. "I tried everything. Finally I just gave up. I called Lisa and she said to give her some of the teething tablets from the medicine cabinet. I let a few dissolve on her tongue, dropped another couple into the formula," Cameron tells him, glancing between Rachel's almost-sleeping body and Chase's patient eyes with a look of shame. "She calmed down almost immediately, and a few minutes later she went to town on this bottle."

Chase nods softly and smiles, reaching out to brush a knuckle over Rachel's cheek.

"I'm sorry, Chase." Cameron sighs audibly and shakes her head. "I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss your ideas. You were right, and I should have—I should have trusted you, but I was just…"

"You were afraid," he interjects, and Cameron nods curtly in affirmation. "We both were. And I'm sorry, too. We were both reacting to the stress, but I never should have played on your doubts about being a mum."

"It's okay. I know you didn't mean it." Cameron smiles brightly as she removes the empty bottle from Rachel's satisfied mouth and leans the baby upright on her lap to burp her even as she sleeps.

"See how easily you just did that? You're a natural," he whispers supportively, reaching over to take the sleeping child into his arms as he stands. Cameron watches quietly as Chase moves with Rachel toward the crib, gently laying her onto the mattress and placing a pacifier into her mouth. Standing from the rocker, Cameron joins Chase at the railing and covers Rachel with the blanket that was resting forgotten by her tiny feet.

"You're going to be an excellent mother, babe," Chase assures her as he pulls her close once more, leaning in to press a kiss to her hairline.

"I can't do it without you," she confesses softly in return.

"We're a team, yeah?"

"Yeah," Cameron nods and leans her head against his shoulder, resting her hand atop his on its new favorite spot over her stomach. Both of them watching awestruck as Rachel sleeps peacefully below them, Cameron sighs contentedly and smiles, closing her eyes and allowing herself to picture what's ahead of them. She knows Chase is right—it's a journey into the great unknown that holds the power to break them both individually, but together it's a bold new chapter in their lives that can only make them stronger.

"I can't wait to meet her," she whispers softly, and Chase smiles to himself at Cameron's choice of gender.

"Soon," he tells her as he thinks of the months to come. "She'll be here soon."

**-----**

**FIN**


End file.
